Continuing the theme of interesting novellas by established authors, Solaris have just published a limited edition novella by Clarke Award-winning novelist Adrian Tchaikovsky. Ironclads is the story of a mission behind enemy lines to track down the missing son from a high-profile, corporate family. A mission into a war-torn Sweden populated with genetically-engineered warriors, drones and robots.
Tchaikovsky’s setting is a near-future Europe. Ravaged by climate change, the world has been changed significantly. But this is also a post-Brexit Europe, where the UK is in thrall to the USA, and corporate interests dominate. US cultural imperialism now dominates, and the UK is a beach head in a war between US corporations and those of Europe. Any pretence that warfare is driven by politics and the nation state has vanished – these are wars between corporations, fought over markets, opportunities and technologies. Those corporations are owned by the super-rich, in a world where there is an ever-starker gap between rich and poor. In this new feudalism, the poor enlist in the armed forces because they have few other options, but the officer class is drawn from the new corporate aristocracy.
This is a story that draws heavily on both Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and its famous film adaptation, Apocalypse Now. Conrad’s meditation on imperialism and racism is given a fresh, contemporary twist by Tchaikovsky, that brings its relevance bang up to date.
Goodreads rating: 5*